The short title of Republic Act 12207, amending the Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013 (R.A. 10533), is concise and categorical: "discontinuing the use of the mother tongue as medium of instruction from Kindergarten to Grade 3." It is also somewhat misleading in failing to capture the initial uncertainty or, perhaps, disagreement among legislators about the impact of the medium of instruction (MOI) on children's early years of education and the intended outcome of the legislation they were crafting.
The abbreviated, operative titles attached to the early versions of the precursor House and Senate bills reflected this apparent lack of consensus on the mandatory MOI to be used in the first four years of elementary school. House Bill 6067 called for "suspending the implementation of the use of the mother tongue." Senate Bill 2457 only provided for "redefining the application of the mother tongue." The different formulations suggested that legislators did not want to completely abandon and appear to oppose the mother-tongue-based, multiple language education (MTBMLE) strategy that UNESCO experts had prescribed 75 years ago for countries coping with diverse language communities, that the world had largely accepted, and that even their own EDCOM II had supported as appropriate for the Philippines.
They recognized that the policy, as implemented by DepEd in the last decade, had been a dismal failure. They could not ignore the complaints coming from their constituencies, nor dismiss the results of international assessment tests. Despite the 2013 law mandating MTBMLE, Filipino students took the PISA tests in 2018 and 2022 in English. Both instances recorded disappointingly poor performance. In the end, the House accepted the Senate's SB 2457 as an amendment to its own bill. SB 2457 was then rewritten to read "discontinuing the use of the mother tongue," the formulation adopted by R.A. 12207. Last month, without further deliberations, the bill lapsed into law. As provided by the Constitution, Filipino and English would again serve as the MOI in basic education.
Another addition to the revised Senate bill and, subsequently, R.A. 12207 reinforced the reluctance to reject MTBMLE: the provision for "optional implementation in monolingual classes" of the mother tongue as MOI. Skeptics may dismiss this change as no more than pampalubag-loob, a sop or concession for disheartened MTBMLE advocates. The law directed DepEd to consult with Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF). KWF's mission was to transform Tagalog into Filipino, the national language, by incorporating elements of other languages spoken in the country. It also produced dictionaries, vocabularies, and learning materials for schools. But ultimately, DepEd will decide which mother tongues to use in schools, as it did in implementing R.A. 10533.
Nevertheless, "monolingual classes" as the condition for using mother tongue MOI was crucial. This had been key to the DepEd pilot MTBMLE program in Kalinga. It succeeded because the children and teachers in the program all understood and spoke Kalinga and used Kalinga-language materials in monolingual classrooms. In expanding the pilot to the entire country, DepEd apparently assumed that the mother tongue chosen as classroom MOI would be used in monolingual environments. Compounding the error was DepEd's inclination, noted by EDCOM II, to pursue a top-down, one-size-fits-all policy. Thus, using existing ethnolinguistic mapping, DepEd determined which mother tongue to use in schools, presuming that students in all classrooms would understand the chosen language.
"Even with 1950s data, UNESCO could have warned DepEd against identifying the children's mother tongue with the 'traditional speech variety or variety of Filipino sign language existing in a region, area or place."
Even with 1950s data, UNESCO could have warned DepEd against identifying children's mother tongue with the "traditional speech variety or variety of Filipino sign language existing in a region, area or place." Certainly by 2013, for example, Ibanag was clearly no longer the only mother tongue spoken in Aparri. With trade and population movements, children there could be speaking Ilocano or Maranao at home. Nor can DepEd rely on what children say is the language they know best or use most. Children may correctly claim knowledge of Ilocano or Bicolano; the differences between lowland and highland Ilocano or in the multiple variations of Bicolano will be beyond them. Even parents may not serve as reliable informants if they know that their response will determine the school MOI. They may prefer that their children learn Filipino or English, especially if their own mother tongue is not one of the more widely spoken languages. They may not easily accept the expert advice that learning the mother tongue or first language facilitates the learning of second and third languages.
Fortunately, even if belatedly, R.A. 12207 corrects the 2013 mistake. It called for the development of a "language mapping framework to properly identify and classify learners based on their Mother Tongue in order to systematically determine the existence of monolingual classes per school year." It also required DepEd to conduct a review of the monolingual classes after three years of implementation and after every three years thereafter for submission to the president and the heads of the Senate and House of Representatives.
It is likely, however, that schools will enroll children speaking different mother tongues, with no single language clearly dominant. UNESCO had anticipated this problem and proposed common-sense measures: 1) "the school should seek to arrange instruction groups by mother tongue;" 2) "if mixed groups are unavoidable, instruction should be in the language which gives the least hardship to the bulk of the pupils;" 3) "special help should be given to those who do not speak the language of instruction."
DepEd can interpret the option of mother tongue as MOI offered in R.A. 12207 in a restrictive or, as the legislators appear to prefer, in a permissive way. The IRR can ensure that this preference is respected.
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Edilberto de Jesus is the incumbent president of the Asian Institute of Management in Makati, Philippines. He was appointed secretary of education in 2002 by President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.